Tag Archives: LA

My Mate, Brandon Friesen, was born in Minneapolis and is an American Grammy Award nominated and multi-Juno Award winning Record Producer/Audio engineer/Mixer/Song writer and Television producer.

His current companies include record label Blue Cadillac Music, with partner Billy Ray Cyrus, Arbor Television, and C12 records (distributed through EMI Music Canada). Brandon recently worked with Dionne Warwick recording a Billy Ray song at Jamie Fox’s home studio.

Brandon’s career has spanned many years. In 2006 he was honored for a second time, as engineer of the year at the WCMA Awards.

As a producer, mixing engineer and audio engineer, Brandon has worked with the likes of Randy Staub (Metallica, Nickelback) and Power 97 Sessions which include acoustic performances by Nickelback, Sum 41, Everlast, Seether, Staind, Fingers Eleven, Three Days Grace. He’s also been working with The Calling and is involved as writer and co-producer with the Kooks whose current release is taking the world by storm. Their first single Be Who You Are, is climbing the charts like greased lightning.

I recently sang on a few tracks with The Kooky Boys (as I like to call them), especially their new single which is a smash hit. I’m very very proud to be part of it especially as the boys have been my clients for the longest time. Seeing them working with Brandon is extremely exciting.

I had the great pleasure of meeting and working with Brandon through my manager Erika Lee, who talked Brandon into letting me co-produce vocals for a project they were involved in, and that was the beginning of our wonderful relationship, which has led to us collaborating on various projects together, both here and the USA.

I’ve sat in on some of Brandon’s sessions and watched this tower of power work his magic with my artists. He’s great at making them laugh and feel at ease and getting vocals out of them that they did not think were possible. Brandon also excels at working on artists’ writing skills with his talented team. I’ve seen him drive singers to perfection right through the night. With his calm, cool and charming manner, he gets performers to work til they’re on their knees, but delivering more than they ever thought possible. Despite being driven to their limits, the artists are always amazed with the end product.

Brandon’s commitment to his productions doesn’t end there, he mixes and masters the completed tracks sprinkling them with Friesen music fairy dust.

Brandon is a wicked guitarist and clever musician with an extraordinary passion for his work, so of course the tracks themselves are always amazing, exciting, fresh, new and totally rock. Kinda reminds me of sitting in and working on a Mutt Lange production. The sheer dedication and perseverance to deliver a magnificent end product is a marvel to behold. They are both rare breeds indeed.

I’ve just returned back from this rock star’s home in La La Land, where I was treated to the holiday of a lifetime. I met some of Bollywood’s finest actors, producers, film makers promoters and models. But most especially Arko Pravo Mukherjee, a film maker and singer/songwriter, who’ll be coming to London after finishing recording with Brandon to work on pre-production at my performance academy for his pending tour dates.

Brandon and I, worked and played hard, laughed till our sides hurt, ate for Africa had meetings about my pending book which he’s helping me to publish. I even swam with Strawberry, his Red Slider turtle from Missouri, she has now moved into the swimming pool, I wanted to move in with her.

I adore and admire this wonderful man and can’t wait for the next time I see him again. We’ll be continuing to work on our exciting new projects which are scheduled for this year, and, of course, we’ll be having more fun.